Key events
To add to the picture-perfect footage coming from Nasa right now, dolphins are swimming around the floating capsule as the recovery team prepares it to be hoisted onto the recovery ship.
My colleague Richard Luscombe, who is covering the mission from Florida, has more of the first reaction we heard from the returned astronauts.
“And splashdown. Crew 9 back on Earth. Nick, Aleksandr, Butch and Suni, on behalf of SpaceX, welcome home,” a voice from mission control said.
“What a ride. I see a capsule full of grins, ear to ear,” Nicholas Hague, the third American on board, replied.
We’ll have more from Richard soon.
“Splashdown was nothing short of spectacular,” Nasa’s Jaden Jennings, a public affairs employees, is at the recovery site, tells viewers of Nasa’s live feed.
“A new core memory was made today,” Jennings added.
The Dragon capsule is now being prepared to be brought onto the recovery ship, where astronauts will finally exit and receive medical checks, before taking helicopters back to land, and departing for Houston, according to the Nasa-Space X live feed.
Another view of the splashed-down spacecraft, Dragon Freedom, floating off the coast of Florida, having returned four astronauts to earth from the International Space Station.
This is what the capsule that just landed off the coast of Florida looks like. Recovery vessels are arriving to do safety checks and pick up the astronauts.
Shortly after the splashdown, we heard a crackly reaction that sounded like it was coming from inside the just-landed capsule of astronauts: “ … amazing … what a ride!”
Big cheers on the Nasa livestream as a commentator announces: “Crew 9 back on Earth!”
Capsule carrying four astronauts successfully splashes down off Florida
A capsule carrying four astronauts just successfully “splashed down” off the Florida coast, bringing an end to the dramatically prolonged journey of Nasa astronauts Barry “Butch” Wilmore and Suni Williams, who were stuck for more than nine months on the International Space Station.
Crew 9 is “just minutes away from splashing down off the coast of Tallahassee, Florida”, per Nasa’s live feed.
Viewers are cheering the footage of parachute deployment.
The International Space Station will be celebrating a big milestone this November, Nasa’s Sandra Jones reminded listeners: 25 years of continuous human presence in space.
“If you’re younger than 25 years, you’ve never known a day when there hasn’t been a human living and working aboard the International Space Station, contributing to key science and research investigations that impact our lives here on Earth,” Jones said.
